It is my
conviction that the phenomenal growth of Congress is due to its acceptance and
enforcement, however imperfect, of the policy of non-violence. Time has arrived
to consider the nature of Congress non-violence. Is it non­violence of the weak
and the helpless, or of the strong and the powerful? If it is the former, it
will never take us to our goal and, if long practised, may even render us or
ever unfit for self-government. The weak and helpless are non-violent in action
because they must be. But in reality they harbour violence in their breasts and
simply await opportunity for its display. It is necessary for Congress­men
individually and collectively to examine the quality of their non-violence. If
it does not come out of real strength, it would be best and honest for the
Congress to make such a declaration and make the necessary changes in its
behaviour.
By this
time, i. e. after seventeen years' practice of
non-violence, the Congress should be able to put forth non-violent army
of volunteers numbering not a few thousands but lakhs who would be equal to
every occasion where the police and the military are required. Thus, instead of
one brave Paslhupatinath Gupta who died in the attempt to secure peace, we
should be able to produce hundreds. And a non-violent army acts unlike armed
men, as well in times of peace as of disturbances. They would be constantly
engaged in constructive activities that make riots impossible.
Theirs will be the duty of seeking occasions for bringing warring
communities together, carrying on peace propaganda, engaging in activities that
would bring and keep them in touch with every single person, male and female,
adult and child, in their parish or division. Such an army should be ready to
cope with any emergency, and in order to still the frenzy of mobs should risk
their lives in numbers sufficient for the purpose. A few hundred, may be a few
thousand, such spotless deaths will once for all put an end to the riots. Surely
a few hundred young men and women giving themselves deliberately to mob fury will be any day a cheap and braver method of dealing with such
madness than the display and use of the police and the military.
It has been
suggested that when we have our inde­pendence riots and the
like will not occur. This seems
to me to be an empty hope, if
in the course of the struggle for
freedom we do not understand and use the technique
of non-violent action in every conceivable circumstance.
To the extent that the Congress ministers
have been obliged to make use of the police and the military, to that extent, in
my opinion, we must admit our failure. That the mini­sters could not have done
otherwise is unfortunately only too true. I should like every Congressman, I
should like the Working Committee, to ask themselves why we have failed, if they
think with me that we have.

Harijan, 26-3-1938

[1] Later on a correction appeared in the Harijan,
that though Shri Gupta was seriously injured, he did not die. —Ed.